With the elderly population disproportionately affected by complications from Covid-19, the novel coronavirus has highlighted the physical well-being of older persons. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), older people are particularly at risk of developing fatal complications from the virus. Mental health experts, however, have warned that focus […]

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Nurses eBulletin

Nurse-patient ratio remains one of the challenging phenomena in nursing community globally and amazingly, there seem to be no definite answer pointing to universal standardized staffing .

Denosa(Democratic nurses organization of South Africa) cited South African public health as having enormously disproportionate nurse_patient ratio.

They believe nurse-patient ratio should be clearly defined with polices and laws,and regulated by legislation,as revealed in one of their research articlesThey are of the view that any provision to set up legislatory framework to regulate staffing,should not leave nurses inputs behind.

What ever the views and how fragmented they might be from country to country,state to state or organisation to organisation,most of us will agree that, inconsistent nurse-patient ratio leads to working problems such as low job satisfaction, workload and may force some nurses to leave the profession to mention just few.

Focussing on recent proceedings in USA,as reported by Week.com on the 21 March in Illnois, the debate on the issue ensued between the National Nurses Union and Illinois Health and Hospital Association at the Capitol dome,whereby nurses union was pushing for mandatory legislation to regulate nurse-patient ratio.

‘Nurse taking too many patients creates errors or the nurse can get injured’Said Theresa Ivery,a registered nurse at Jackson Park hospital. adding that the bill will ensure both nurses and patients safety.

Opposing the bill,Illinois Health and Hospital Association claimed the ‘One size fits all’,approach will harm hospitals and health care providers .as patients will have to wait longer,while services will be reduced and institutions will have to operate at higher costs.

Is nurse-patient ratio feasible?for both developed and developing countries.,if your country or state, succesfully implemeted it,how easy or difficuld was it to roll out,and what challenges and positives can you associate with the respective legislation.?

Professor Mashudu Tshifularo,team member, said the procedure is quick and carries less risks that the conventional prostheses.

The fact that prostheses are made of titanium which is biocompatible (doesn’t harm tissues) and the use of endoscopic device leave less scaring

Steve Biko AcademicGauteng Health 13 March

The nurse who took care of the late physicist professor Stephen Hawking banned

Britain: Patricia Dowdy ,the late Professor Stephen Hawking’s nurse for 15 years was banned over financial misconduct, practicing substandard nursing care while caring for the professor and practicing under illegitimate qualifications.

The British Nursing and Midwifery Council(NMC)has ruled on her dismissal but not before Mr Hawking’s family laid a complaint.

Mr Hawking had been living with (ALS)amyotrophic lateral sclerosis which confined him to a wheel chair and has survived the paralysis codition longer than anticipated. Sowetan 12 March

South Africa:The nurse in question colluded with his counterpart at a remote hospital ,whom he gave his practice licence details to excess patient’s details and facilitate the exorbitant claims for patients care supplies or pay for services not rendered amount to R500.000 per month.

The pair are facing fraud in excess of R3 million,and his counterpart is suspended.

Discovery Health CEO Dr Jonathan Bloomberg said they manage to recover R555 million in 2018 and prevented billions more loss in Rands from fraud,abuse and wasteful expenditure by implementing several antifraud mechanisms which include analysts and investigators.

Herald Live 12 March

48 nurses and pharmacists on administrative leave over high dosages medicine deaths

Ohio: Mount Carmel Health System said they placed 48 nurses and pharmacists on administrative leave following high dosage pain killers deaths.This after it was discovered that the doctor, Dr William Husel ,ordered fatally high doses of pain killers to 29 patients.

The employees on administrative leave were replaced by new interim team of clinical and intensive unit leaders.

The deaths are under investigation by police and prosecutors. Dr Husel is also investigated for Medicaid fraud,and his licence was suspended by The State Medical Board. ABC news 13 March

Those are familiar voice commands as patients call on Alexa the messenger,or is she?The answer can be found at Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.

One thing for sure is that this technological innovation has transformed hospital wards into ‘Super wards_or ‘Super rooms.

First installed in February 2018 as a pilot project,it now covers more than 100 rooms.and the future is promising.

Developed by Amazon,Alexa is one of the of latest technologies that seem to have a long way ahead.This voice controlled assistant works on smart speakers(Amazon Echo Dot) and operates on healthcare software or platform called Aiva.

What does it do?? From distructing patients off pain,anxiety, loneliness, provides entertainments, connecting patients with hospital staff, to connecting patients with the outside world this tech is worth banking on.

Alexa is a voice command assistant,just like ‘Siri’,on IPhone. Patients can call a nurse,switch on devices like TV,changing TV channels,access weather,playing music and more….by voice command.

The nurse call is delivered to respective nurse’s mobile device, in text message form and the sender gets feedback that the message is delivered.

‘So far nurses are also responding positively to the technology’says Peachy Hain,Executive Director of medical and surgical services at the hospital. Nurses can now concentrate on nursing the patients without having to switch on and changing TV channels.

This comes after the department raised concern about high influx of foreign nationals for medical treatments,which the department said is straining already tight budget;this coupled with cost of medical litigations that have ballooned to around R2 billion last year alone.Letters of demand are said to have been sent to respective embassies for unpaid medical bills.

Washington:Western State hospital. Three nurses are suing the department of Social and Health over several counts of assault by a patient.The assaults are said to have happened last year in a span of six months duration.

The perpetrator Mr Christopher Jones is said to have history of sexual violence,targeting females.The women claimed the hospital knew about his violence behavior, but failed to address the matter properly.

The complainants said Mr Jones violent behavior ranges from knocking the mental health technician to the floor, touching his genitals while grabbing one of the victims thigh and biting off a piece of one of his victim’s ear.

Even though Mr Jones was later charged with second degree assault,the charges were later dropped as it was discovered that he was incompetent to stand trial.

The lawsuit was filed on the 22nd Feb by Bernia Garner,Karen Jolley and Kaitlyn Tritt.The department spokes woman Kelly Stowe said the agency cannot comment on matters pending litigation.

Extract from The News Tribune

Germany lure UK’s Polish nurses to address nurses shortage

Germany is luring Polish nurses working in UK to consider German work opportunities in their move to address nurses shortage.Job opportunities adverts promise better salaries,tasty food and chance to work close to their home country.Germany is hopeful that Polish nurses concerns and worries over Brexit,that may jeopardize their work permits,should United Kingdom leaves European Union,will compel them to heed Germany’s call.

Calida argued that relevant provision in the law was repealed in 2009 joint resolution by the Congress on the basis that it would distorts and destabilizes medical and allied salaries, Supreme court hears.

According to Calida,if nurses demand is to be implemented, nurses salaries will exceed that of certain doctors,including entry level salaries for dentists,physio therapists, midwives and medical technologists.According to Calida,there is currently no legal basis to compel the government to upgrade nurses salaries to Salary Level 15.

Section 32 of Philippine Nursing Act of 2002 states that the minimum base pay of nurses in public health institutions shall not be lower than salary Grade 15.

However Leah wants the court to compel the government to act based on Philippine Nursing Act and disregard the joint resolution ruling.

Parties will also need to agree whether the joint resolution by the Congress can repeal or amend the law.The Chief Justice ordered both parties to submit their memoranda in 20 days